Forza Motorsport 5 revisited: Ars talks to Turn 10

Drivatars, DLC, and the game's reception were on the agenda.

It’s been almost three months since the launch of Forza Motorsport 5, Turn 10’s next-generation racing game for the Xbox One. It’s fair to say that it was not greeted with universal praise. Gaming can be highly tribal, and criticism poured into comment threads from all sides. Not realistic enough, said the PC racers. Not enough cars, said the PS3 racers. Why can’t I use my wheel, asked the Xbox 360 crew. We hate microtransactions, roared just about everyone. Back in November I felt that the pressure of being a launch title with a not-to-be-missed release date was evident, but it also seemed clear that the game was a work in progress. Even though Turn 10 has been busy in the intervening months with DLC and tweaks to the game’s rewards structure, Dan Greenawalt found time to answer some of our questions about the game, its development, and its reception.

Positive pressure

Being tied to the Xbox One launch was a huge opportunity, Dan told us. FM5 is the first installment of the franchise to launch alongside the console it runs on, putting the game in front of millions of new fans.

His positive attitude continued when asked whether the mixed reaction to the game had been a surprise. "The response… has been tremendous. Based on the telemetry coming out of the Forza Rewards program, many longtime Forza fans have moved over to the Xbox One and are deeply engaged with the game." The sales figures bear out that optimism; earlier this week, Microsoft announced that a third of Xbox One owners have bought FM5, making it the fastest selling racing game in the Xbox’s 12-year history.

The sharpest Drivatar in the shed

Forza Motorsport's AI is particularly innovative, befitting the franchise’s roots in Microsoft’s Cambridge, UK, research unit. Drivatars—AI characters whose behavior is learned from human players—have been a feature of several Forza games, but this is the first time they’ve traveled beyond the local confines of each individual Xbox. As a result, the cars you’ll try and beat in single-player races behave much less predictably than many other racing games.

Because Drivatars are trained by the aggregate pool of Forza players, the Drivatar system was something I was keen to revisit once that pool had expanded beyond those with access to the game pre-release. According to Greenawalt, the data each Drivatar is based on is extensive, drawing on "things like braking and acceleration usage when heading into and out of turns, the player’s line, as well as the player’s propensity for making contact with other cars, and so on."

Less predictable AI can be a curse as well as a blessing, though. During the game’s first weeks I was witness to some pretty questionable driving. In particular, it was extremely difficult starting at the back and making it past the slower third of the grid without getting hit or having to rewind. I was curious about how much of a player’s driving style actually gets incorporated into their Drivatar, especially with respect to that rewind function. For example, if I hit another car, then rewind a few seconds and overtake them without contact, does my Drivatar learn to race clean or bump its way through?

Dan explains: "when using rewind while driving, the first action is what is noted… So, in your example, if you hit a car ahead of you, then Rewind and successfully make it past the car, the Drivatar will note the fact that you hit your opponent on your first try. This is in order to prevent the player from gaming the Drivatar system and only using “perfect” laps in order to build their profile."

The Drivatar system has attracted frequent Skynet jokes, evoking the self-aware AI from the Terminator films. Dan wasn’t able to tell me if this massive distributed machine-learning experiment had created any emergent behavior, but he was proud of how the technology is inspiring "narrative" among players.

"I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Forza 5 players tell me about something that happened to them as they were driving against Drivatars. Maybe they beat one of their friends’ Drivatars who is several skill levels above them, or they went three-wide into the final corner of a final lap, or they crashed out while attempting some epic overtake. People are trash-talking their friends’ AIs! That just doesn't happen with traditional racing opponents."

New tracks, new cars

The lack of cars and tracks compared to previous installments and rival titles was probably the loudest complaint at launch. As expected, Dan refused to be drawn into specifics, so I can’t reveal the impending addition of the Nürburgring or Porsche. But the DLC has been flowing pretty steadily since November, some of it free.The return of Wisconsin's scenic Road America as a free download has been particularly welcome; the track has a particular place in my heart and I’ve raced there several times now. The FM5 version looks substantially improved over previous representations, and it now includes multiple configurations, including the track layout that ChumpCar uses. That’s enabled me to quite accurately simulate our race car, which I certainly think is cool, even if no one else will.

Three months on, my main FM5 irritation is the lack of steering wheel peripherals, which is something largely outside Turn 10’s control. I’ve not had a chance to try out the Thrustmaster wheel, but reports from our forums suggest it can be temperamental, and it doesn’t appear as if the MadCatz wheel has hit the stores yet. I’ve largely adapted to using a controller again, but I am extremely eager to find out how immersive the game is with a wheel and some pedals.

Upping the Drivatar difficulty has taken care of some of the sketchy AI driving, and the game doesn’t feel particularly grindy, partly thanks to tweaks made to car prices and reward levels. If you’ve got an Xbox One and haven’t tried FM5, now is as good a time as any. Oh, it’s also the only way most of us will ever recreate Chris Harris’ excellent video of throwing a McLaren P1 around Yas Marina’s F1 track.